The Boss's Bride (The Heart of Main Street) Read online

  “Is there any reason for running from your own wedding, Gracie? Have you met someone else?”

  It was on Gracie’s mind to tell the whole truth but she couldn’t. What good would it do to drag Trent Morgan through the mud? It would only serve one purpose—to make her feel better.

  “I haven’t met anyone else, Whitney. You know me better than that. And I’m not going to share the reason I left. Could we please stop this? I’m not news. This is Bygones, not Hollywood, and my wedding isn’t a big deal.”

  “It’s the lack of a wedding that makes this news, Gracie.”

  “Only for a week. Only until someone’s house gets vandalized or someone TPs the school.”

  Whitney smiled sympathetically and touched her arm. “I hope for your sake that’s the truth.”

  “Thank you. And now I have to talk to my family.”

  Max handed her his cell phone. “It’s Dad.”

  She held the phone for a minute because she didn’t know what she would say to her dad, other than to assure him she was okay. Patrick moved away from her.

  “I’ll see you Monday?” he said as he stepped down off the porch.

  “Of course. And thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Gracie watched Patrick walk to his truck. She would see him Monday at work. And it would be as if this wedding never happened. But then, she guessed the wedding didn’t happen.

  The last thing Patrick expected on Monday morning was the line of people on the sidewalk waiting to get into his store. He glanced out, watching as more cars parked on the crowded street. A few people held coffee cups from the Cozy Cup Café and more than one carried bags from the Sweet Dreams Bakery.

  He hated to say it, but the Bygones Runaway Bride had done more for the Bygones economy than just about every other project the town had come up with. He wouldn’t allow himself to think that it was another ploy by the good citizens, meant to bring business to the failing community.

  Miss Coraline Connolly had had some crazy ideas, but that would be going too far.

  Someone pounded on the back door of the building. He glanced at his watch. Still twenty minutes before he opened at nine o’clock. He gave the crowd one last look, shook his head in amazement and headed for the stockroom. He guessed Gracie had seen the crowd and had opted to enter through the back door in the alley behind the store.

  When he opened the door, it was Miss Coraline, retired principal of the Bygones school system and determined optimist. He’d never met a woman so determined. And she had with her that tiny dynamo of a woman Ann Mars, owner of the This ’N’ That shop. Ann, an active woman in her mid-eighties, had been assigned to be his host and helper when he moved to town.

  The two women were both faithful Christians, and both loved their town, but they were as different as night and day. Miss Coraline, with her short gray hair and dress suits, always seemed in charge. Ann Mars coiled her long white hair on top of her head, smelled like sugar cookies and could sweet-talk a snake out of its skin. She was genuinely nice and made a person want to do things for her. Coraline was dignified. Ann was less than five feet tall and slightly stooped.

  “Welcome, ladies. To what do I owe this pleasure?”

  Miss Coraline spoke first, which seemed to be how she was wired. “As if you don’t know, Patrick Fogerty. We’re here to help with crowd control.”

  He looked at the two women and tried to remain serious. But he smiled; he couldn’t help it. He was picturing the tiny Ann Mars holding back the crowd waiting outside his store. A good wind would blow her over and that crowd could trample her.

  “I’m not sure why I would need crowd control. Isn’t it just your average Monday in Bygones?”

  Ann Mars wagged her finger at him. “Do not play with us, young man. You saw that crowd out there, and it isn’t your…”

  She turned a little pink and Miss Coraline cleared her throat. “What she means to say is that as handsome as you are, that crowd isn’t here to buy drills or nails. They’re here to see if Gracie shows up for work.”

  “I’m sure she’ll be here.” He reached for his store apron, dark green with deep pockets for tools and other items he might need.

  “She’s going to need you,” Coraline Connolly said with a lift of her chin. He hadn’t known her long but that look seemed to mean she meant business.

  “I think she has plenty of people.” The back door eased open and he smiled at his two friends. “And here she is.”

  Miss Coraline pulled the door open and Gracie stepped into the room, her face a little pink and her short dark hair a windblown halo around her face.

  “Oh, Miss Coraline, Miss Mars, I didn’t expect you.”

  Ann Mars didn’t say a word; she grabbed Gracie in a tight hug and held her until the moment became pretty uncomfortable. Patrick glanced at his watch. It was nearly time to open. He looked at the complicated group of females standing in front of him and he wondered why he had ever thought small-town life would be simpler.

  “There’s a crowd out front,” Gracie said after she’d wiggled free from the arms of Ann Mars.

  “Yes, there is, and I guess we know why they’re here.” Ann pursed her lips and snorted.

  “To buy hardware supplies?” Gracie dropped her purse on the table where she’d left her flowers two nights ago. The flowers were now wilted, a symbol of the wedding that hadn’t been. She picked them up and started to dump them in the trash but first she removed the ribbon.

  A symbol of her own stubbornness. She’d had to fight for that ribbon, so she might as well keep it.

  “Are you okay?” Patrick stood next to her, his words quiet in his husky voice.

  “I’m good. A little nervous. But I can’t hide forever.”

  “Gracie, you’re going to have to face this.” Coraline edged close and gave the flowers a disgusted look. “What a mess. But you did the right thing. I don’t know why you did it, and that’s your business, but I never felt good about you marrying that young man.”

  Gracie kissed Miss Coraline’s cheek. “Thank you. I guess I didn’t, either.”

  “So now we face the fallout. Together.” Coraline linked her arm with Gracie’s. “You have us. And you have Patrick. And someday you’ll meet the man of your dreams and have a wonderful life.”

  “I think I’ll take a break from romance,” Gracie murmured, unable to look up for fear of seeing Patrick.

  “Are you okay?” Ann slipped close. “You look flushed.”

  “I’m good. I just need to get back to work and get past this.”

  Patrick glanced at his watch. “Time to open up.”

  “And face the music,” Coraline said with a bright smile.

  “I don’t think we want to talk about music,” Ann Mars whispered to her friend. “It might make her think of the wedding.”

  Gracie smiled as she followed Patrick into the main part of the store. When she saw the crowd at the doors, she faltered. She had expected people to be curious. She hadn’t expected a mob.

  “This is more than I expected. From the street it looked like a few people, not a crowd.”

  “They’ve been out there for an hour.” Patrick paused, looking from her to the door and back to her. Gracie wanted to sink into the floor. “You could take today off.”

  She shook her head. “No, I’m staying. If I don’t face it today, I’ll have to face it tomorrow or the next day.”

  Eventually she’d also have to face Trent and his parents. They’d called yesterday, but her dad had been firm, telling them they could wait a few days and then informing them that this big wedding had been their idea, not his and not Gracie’s, so the expense was theirs.

  Her dad hadn’t asked a lot of questions about why she’d left the church the way she had. He’d never been comfortable with fath
er-daughter talks and had counted on ladies in town to take those discussions off his hands.

  She swallowed past the lump that settled in her throat as Patrick turned the dead bolt and opened the door. The crowd poured into the store, more interested in her than the great sale on power drills.

  Those drills were a really great buy.

  A young woman approached Gracie, elbowing people out of her way as she moved through the crowd towing two young children behind her. Gracie didn’t know her but the brunette smiled as if they’d been friends forever.

  “Can I help you?” Gracie cleared her throat to get the words out.

  “Yes, you can. I need to know how to fix a window that lets in cold air. I need help.”

  A window? Gracie hadn’t expected that. She breathed a sigh of relief and led the woman to the section of the store with sealants, window plastic and other do-it-yourself items.

  “Here we go. Is it just one window?”

  The woman looked around, glaring at customers who tried to get close enough to listen. “More than one. And I have to do this job myself. With two kids and a husband who decided he might as well be single, I’m on my own. Good for you, Gracie Wilson, for running before the wedding.”

  “Oh, I…” She didn’t know what to say.

  “It’s better to walk away from a wedding than walk away from a marriage.”

  “I see, well, yes.” Heat crawled up her cheeks. “Let’s see. Do you want the plastic? It’s easy to put it up. A few tacks, a hair dryer and you’ll save yourself a lot of money this winter.”

  “I think that’s perfect. Do you think I can put it up myself?”

  “I put it up every winter on our old farmhouse.”

  “That’s great.” The young woman gave her a hug and then hurried away with plastic and two children.

  Gracie started to turn but a woman grabbed her arm and gave her a big hug. Gracie squirmed away and saw that it was a friend she’d gone to school with.

  “Gracie, I don’t know what happened, but we’re behind you.”

  Gracie opened her mouth, but she couldn’t explain. It was private and it still hurt too much to think about. She wasn’t a hero. She wasn’t suddenly wild and crazy, breezing through life without thinking.

  “Is it because your boss is such a hunk?” Lacey Clark asked. Lacey ran a day care but she’d lost half her clients when Randall Manufacturing closed.

  She wondered if Mr. Randall hadn’t realized that closing his business would hurt more than just his own employees. The closing of Randall Manufacturing had affected the entire town. But some things couldn’t be helped, and Gracie knew that the economy had played a role in Mr. Randall’s decision.

  Gracie coughed and searched quickly to make sure Patrick hadn’t heard Lacey’s question. “No, of course not. Listen, Lacey, I’m really busy. Can I help you with something?”

  “Oh, yes, of course. I have these old cabinets that I want to spruce up.”

  “We have a textured spray paint that works great. Let me show you what I mean.”

  Lacey followed her to the paint section. “Can you show me how to use it? I can paint my nails, but anything more than that and I’m at a loss.”

  “Sure, I’ll get plywood and show you how it works.”

  “You’re a lifesaver, Gracie. And really, if I was you, I’d be head over heels in love with that Patrick Fogerty. If I had half a chance, I’d ask him over for dinner.”

  “Since you’re single, Lacey, maybe you should invite him to the church social next week. He’s a great guy. I can introduce you.”

  She looked around for her boss and saw him heading for the back room. If she didn’t know better, she would call it running. Surely he hadn’t heard her weak attempt to fix him up with Lacey?

  Patrick was a great guy and he deserved to marry someone nice, settle down in Bygones and raise a few kids. As for Gracie, she was done with everything white. It would be a long time before she decided to try romance again.

  Chapter Three

  At five-thirty, Patrick locked the door and switched the sign to Closed. He turned to watch Gracie straighten shelves that had been ransacked by curious customers who had done a lot of business in the store that day. His best day yet.

  Thanks to Gracie, the Bygones Runaway Bride. That was what he’d heard people calling her and he’d overheard Whitney, the local reporter, discussing the headline for Thursday’s paper. He needed to tell Gracie that she would soon be front-page news. He just didn’t know how to bring it up.

  If today had been bad for her, Thursday would be a nightmare.

  She turned, saw him watching her and smiled. He found it a lot easier to smile back than he’d imagined. He’d been surprised by several things today. First and foremost, her lack of tears over the marriage that wasn’t. Shouldn’t she be crying? Wouldn’t she be second-guessing herself?

  He’d heard the ‘‘cold feet’’ theory floated by several people. Some said the wedding would take place in a month or so, after she had time to think about it.

  “Hey, I’ve been thinking about something today.” She turned from the cans of spray paint and wiped her hands on the apron that came to her knees because it was meant for a person a lot bigger than she was.

  “What’s that?”

  “Workshops for women.” Gracie looked around, as if she was still thinking up the plan.

  “Workshops for women? What is that?”

  “What you should do. What we could do to draw in customers. I don’t know, I guess I’ve always had to do things for myself and I thought that all women—well, maybe not all, but most women—could figure things out for themselves. Today I learned that a lot of them don’t have a clue. They can’t even paint a cabinet with spray paint. One of them bought a precut bookshelf off the internet and she didn’t know how to put it together or if she even had the tools.”

  “What are you getting at, Gracie?” Patrick slipped the apron off his neck and rolled up the sleeves he’d kept down and buttoned at his wrists during the workday.

  “We could do workshops.” She gave him a look that said the name was self-explanatory. “For women. We can teach them how to build a bookshelf, make their homes more secure or more energy efficient. And in the process, we could bring in business.”

  He looked around the little store that was his future, his dream, and then back to the woman who had maybe come up with an idea that would keep his future in the black. Lately he’d been taking on more handyman jobs just to keep things going. He’d also been considering going online with the store and with the rocking chairs he’d been building. Her idea would be one more thing to help make his store profitable.

  “I like it, and I think you’re definitely my new assistant manager.”

  She laughed and he was taken by surprise that her laughter made him smile. “You realize I’m your only employee, right?”

  “I do realize that, but today you did the work of three people.”

  “And I managed, through one little wedding scandal, to bring in dozens of customers you hadn’t expected.”

  “I hate to say it, but yes, you did.”

  Pink crawled up her neck into her cheeks. “I heard more personal stories today than I ever thought I’d hear. I never planned on being anyone’s hero or the person everyone shared their tales of heartbreak with.”

  “I’m sure you didn’t. And did you plan on trying to fix me up with half the single women in Bygones?” More pink. He laughed because it served her right. “I overheard you tell at least a dozen women that I’m single and the nicest guy you know and they should maybe ask me to the social, or the singles meeting, or even out for a cup of coffee.”

  “Oops. Well, you are single and nice, and if you’re going to stay in Bygones, you should go out once in a while, not work all of the tim
e.”

  “Thank you for thinking of me, Gracie, but I’ll be fine. I can cook, do my own laundry and even put a bookcase together.”

  “I’m sure you can.”

  “Let’s grab some coffee. We could both use a break.”

  “I should go home.” She pulled the cell phone out of her pocket and glanced at the time. “I need to cook dinner, and my little brother has a load of laundry that he can’t wash on his own.”

  “I think they’ll be fine without you for a little while. Who would have done those things for them if…”

  He sighed and wished he’d kept his thoughts to himself. He didn’t need to get this involved. What Gracie did for her family was none of his concern.

  “If I’d gotten married?” She folded up her apron but held it in her hands, staring at it rather than looking at him.

  “I imagine your little brother can do a load of laundry.”

  “I’ve been taking care of them for years, you know. I mean, I’ll be twenty-five in October, and for almost fifteen years I’ve been cooking, doing their laundry, mending their clothes and stopping their fights. It’s hard to let go.”

  He knew all about letting go. The words reminded him of the day he’d watched all the stock from the Fogerty Hardware store being loaded into a truck and shipped to a large store in a nearby community. He’d signed the building over to the new owner and he’d let go of a family business that he’d invested his life in. The same business his father had died in.

  Until that day, he hadn’t seen that he’d been heading down the same path as his father. The path of long hours, at least.

  “Let’s have that coffee.” She looked up from the apron she was still holding. “And maybe something to eat. I’m starving. My boss is a nice guy, but I barely had time for lunch today.”

  “That would be your fault. You’re the one that left the groom at the altar and caused all this notoriety for yourself.”

  “True, very true, but you’re the guy all the women in town are mooning over.”